“Maybe you should let me decide that. Besides, you might not like me.” Autumn picked up her fork again to resume eating. “Let’s both keep an open mind, okay? I’ll be coming back…a lot…over the summer—so we can get to know each other before school starts next fall.”
Gabe sprang from her chair, knocking it to the floor and causing Elvis to yelp. “I’m not leaving my home.” Her words were angry, but her chest heaved with a half sob. She tripped over Elvis, who yelped again, and then stomped to the back door before turning back for a last word. Her lower lip trembled, and tears ran down her cheeks. “This town was good enough for Mama, and it’s good enough for me.” She flung the screen door open and ran for Catherine’s barn.
Autumn looked stunned for only a second. Then Elvis whined and took Catherine’s hand in his mouth, tugging in the direction of the door.
“It’s okay, Elvis. Let’s give her some space on this.” She flicked her hand toward the door. “But you go keep an eye on her, and come get me if she gets herself in any trouble.”
Elvis didn’t hesitate. He shot out the door to catch up with Gabe, who was past the barn now and running for the forested mountain at the back of Catherine’s property. She stood and watched until he was at Gabe’s heels, then nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned and almost collided with Autumn, who was also watching.
“That went well, huh?” She looked down at the floor and shook her head. “I thought this would be easier. I thought all I needed to do was the exact opposite of what my parents did.”
“People seem complicated,” Catherine said, more to herself than Autumn, as she stared after Gabe. “But, like animals, we all are driven by the same basic fears and emotions.”
“Not really. Animals aren’t spiteful.”
Catherine frowned at the sadness and uncertainty in Autumn’s expressive eyes. You might not like me when you get to know me. Damn. What had her parents done to her? Catherine had an overwhelming urge to gather Autumn in her arms and soothe away the dejection she radiated. She wanted to brush her lips against Autumn’s pouting mouth and kiss the enticing spot beneath her cute ear.
What was she thinking? She was ten years older. Autumn was beautiful and full of life. She was building a business and looking to grab the brass ring of success. Catherine was thirty-five and little more than a survivor, content to hide away while the world passed by her. She needed the quiet and hard work of the farm to keep her sanity, to save her from drowning in a whirlpool of PTSD.
Catherine had a secret, too—one that kept her more than financially secure and had laid Becki, therefore Gabe, a golden nest egg. A secret she didn’t want Autumn to discover. She tried to lighten the dour atmosphere.
“Don’t beat yourself up. I actually thought you handled it okay. I’m pretty sure I know where she’s going. If she’s not back when it gets close to sundown, I’ll go get her. In the meantime, how about we put the food away. I’ll make some coffee and cut that apple pie so we can have dessert on the front porch and talk about our options without Gabe.”
Autumn spied an electric kettle on the counter and imagined Catherine taking a jar of instant coffee from the cabinet. “Actually, I have a million emails to answer, and then I need to run some analytics and monitor the client sites when Jay goes off duty…and…and…great goddess.” Her excuses dwindled when Catherine walked around the table and opened the top cabinet doors of a beautiful cherry cabinet, then slid them back into hidden pockets to reveal a coffee bar she had only dreamed about. An array of very high-end machines included a French press, several bean grinders, an espresso-only machine, one that could produce a single serving or a carafe, and one—holy mother of God—amazing does-everything machine that could produce twelve different specialty drinks. “I would kill to have this at my place.” She ran her hands over the machines, then surveyed the shelves of small, vacuum-sealed bags of coffee beans.
“Don’t do it. I’m pretty sure they won’t let you have a coffee bar in prison,” Catherine said.
Whoa. Did Catherine just make a joke? Autumn smiled. “You’re a coffee connoisseur?”
Catherine’s ears turned a cute pink. “More like a coffee snob,” she said, tactfully ignoring Autumn’s obvious surprise.
Cute? It wasn’t a word Autumn would apply to Catherine. She was too serious. Too…too butch. Handsome, in a rugged sort of way. And very sweet with Gabe. But butch wasn’t Autumn’s type. She liked cute, flirty girls. Ones who painted their nails and liked to wear dresses and heels to go out dancing. Women whose appearance didn’t scream lesbian. But she did love coffee. “Can I make the coffee while you put the food away?”
Catherine hesitated.
“Relax. I might not own machines like these, but I worked my way through college as a barista. I know how to use them.”
Catherine glanced nervously at her expensive coffee machines, then back to Autumn. “Okay. If you have any questions, just ask. Milk and half-and-half are in the fridge. And, uh, there’s some hazelnut-flavored creamer in there, too.”
“Sacrilege.”
Catherine smiled. “I know, right? Becki liked it, or I wouldn’t have it anywhere near my coffee.”
When Catherine smiled, she looked younger than the forty-something Autumn had originally thought. Hmm. Which one first? She wanted to try the really expensive does-everything machine, but she also wanted to impress Catherine with her barista skills by whipping up a work of art. Duh. Maybe she should ask what Catherine would like.
She turned to Catherine. “What’s your favorite?”
“The Italian espresso, black.”
“Black? No sweetener. Nothing I can froth for you?”
“Just black. I’m a purist. I just keep the fancy stuff for visitors. Not that I get that many. But make yourself whatever you want.”
Damn. Maybe she hadn’t miscalculated. Catherine was so boring, she had to be old…older. What did Becki say? Catherine anchored her? Yeah. She could see that. Catherine could be a real drag. She needed to open up and join life a little, if for no other reason than for Gabe. The poor kid would think the city was a virtual candy shop after hanging out with Miss Black Coffee Boring.
“Ready?”
Autumn was drawn from her musings. She took the huge slice of apple pie Catherine offered, glad to see that she at least wasn’t too boring to add a generous scoop of vanilla-bean ice cream on top, then handed over Catherine’s coffee. “Black, no sugar.”
“I do add sugar to the dark, strong teas they brew in the Middle East. Not as much as the natives use, but at least a spoonful.”
“Wow. Who knew you were such a wild woman?” Autumn picked up her triple-shot Americano and then gestured toward the front of the house. “After you.”
***
Autumn bounced on the balls of her feet, then performed a series of pirouettes and leaps up and down the hallway, through the kitchen, out the back door, across the deck, and onto the vast lawn newly mown for the service and visitation tomorrow afternoon. Pirouette, pirouette, leap, leap. She was overloaded with caffeine and sugar, and her sanity was hanging by a thread since her front-porch chat with Catherine and reality hit.
Screw reality. Pirouette, pirouette, leap, leap. The nearly full moon was her personal spotlight, and a flock of Canada geese, gorging on the fresh grass clippings and the occasional cricket, clapped their wings and honked at her performance as they yielded center stage and settled at the far end of the yard. Pirouette, pirouette, leap. Autumn closed her eyes and breathed the scent of earth and forest. The stars twinkled and spun around her like backup dancers when she opened her eyes mid-pirouette. Her body twirled and soared, her heart pumping fast and strong. But her traitorous mind persisted in drowning her with reality like a dolphin tangled in a commercial fishing net.
When did her life go so off the rails and completely out of control? Five days ago. Five nightmarish days ago. She reviewed the events, searching for the point where karma had grabbed her by the throat.
She was working, chugging along uphill as usual. She closed her laptop and went to bed, then was awakened by dogs barking. Who let the dogs out? That’s it! This was all a dream. Pirouette, pirouette, leap. She stared at the moon. Pirouette, pirouette, leap. It was one long, dizzy mind fuck. All she had to do was wake up. Pirouette, leap, splat. Something cold and slimy squished between her toes, and her graceful dance abruptly ended with jerky, one-legged hops. “Gross, gross, gross.”
Goose poop. It would have been as funny as saying “monkey’s butt” if it wasn’t oozing around her piggies. She sighed and gave up the stage. It was only a lawn. Her backup dancers were just stars a trillion miles away, and the geese obviously weren’t as impressed as she had imagined since they’d pooped on her ballet.
So it wasn’t a dream. The list she’d rattled off to Jay was real. She had a kid to raise. She’d have to give up her wonderful, perfect—except that it had only one bedroom—apartment and hunt for a sedate, much less spectacular, two-bedroom place.
She also needed to find office space and get back to work. Jay had scheduled her to meet with four more potential clients in addition to the ones she’d rescheduled before she left. Oh, and she’d promised to come back in a week to spend some time with Gabe so they could get to know one another. How was she going to keep her business growing while she was six hours away? She needed Jay to go full-time now. Why did he need to finish this last semester anyway? Shit. School. She also needed to start thinking about where to enroll Gabe for school. That wasn’t something you could leave until the last minute. The best schools had waiting lists.
Break it down into small tasks, Becki had told her once, then scratch them off the list one by one. She groaned as she hopped over to the water spigot to rinse her contaminated toes enough to hop into the house and begin her list. First, soak in a warm bath to relax. No more caffeine tonight. She gave up hopping and limped awkwardly without letting the tainted toes touch the floor. After a bath, she’d get to work on some of the files Jay had sent. She soaped a washcloth and thoroughly scrubbed her foot, letting the water and soap go down the drain before she plugged the drain in the deep, claw-footed tub and filled it. She wrinkled her nose and tossed the cloth into the hamper, then got a clean one for her bath, continuing her list as she stripped and poured in her favorite bath salts. Make it through the memorial tomorrow. Clean everything up and pack. Sleep and head back to Atlanta first thing Sunday. If she left at dawn, she could work on the files some more Sunday night and hit the ground running on Monday morning. Yes. Plan outlined. Now execute.
Warmth enveloped her, and the faint scent of vanilla and eucalyptus filled her sinuses. She reclined back onto Becki’s inflated tub pillow. Mmm. She’d have to get one of these for her bathroom. Well, first she’d have to get a tub, deep like this one. Her apartment only had a shower. A very cool, modern walk-in shower with two heads and eight settings. But no tub. Maybe it wasn’t so perfect after all.
Chapter Six
“Do I have to go?”
“If I have to, you have to.” Catherine didn’t want to go to the memorial either. She closed her eyes and shoved her trembling hands into the pockets of her “dress” jeans, meaning the only ones that weren’t faded by a hundred washings or spotted with grass or God-knows-what other stains.
The desert hadn’t haunted her night, but a confused swirl of happy times with Becki who kept morphing into Autumn had. Since Catherine and Gabe were the only people Autumn would really know at the memorial, she’d probably Velcro to them like beggar’s-lice seeds did to Elvis’s fur every summer.
It wasn’t that Catherine found Autumn’s company unpleasant. No, not at all. That was the problem. Becki had been beautiful, and Catherine had loved her dearly…as a friend. Her heart had warmed when she dreamed of Becki the night before, but different parts warmed when Becki turned into Autumn, and that was bad. So bad. Autumn was in no way Catherine’s type…well, if she had a type and was fifteen years younger. When Catherine was sixteen and sat through every showing of Almost Famous one weekend to drool over Kate Hudson, Autumn was still wetting her diapers. And there were so many other differences.
Catherine sucked in a breath and turned to face Gabe, who was slouching against the sofa like she was too weak to stand and walk out to the truck, her head down as she studied the floor.
“We both have to go over to the house. Everyone is coming to pay their respects to your mama, Gabe.” She knelt down in front of Gabe to see her eyes. “And in an odd way, it’s their way of respecting your feelings, too. They’ll tell stories about things Becki did for them and funny stories about her to cheer you and everyone up. They’re friends—her friends and your friends. Your mama was a burst of sunlight when she walked into a room, and like you, they want to hold on to that a little longer by getting together today and remembering the good times with her.”
Gabe let out a resigned sigh. “I’m not going to get up and say anything in front of everybody.”
“Nobody expects you to.” Catherine grabbed Gabe under the arms and hauled her up to stand tall. “Now buck up, soldier, and stand for final inspection. General Becki ordered this memorial herself, so we’re going to give her the best send-off this town has ever witnessed.”
It was a familiar game they played behind Becki’s back. Gabe’s lips turned up in the tiniest of smiles, but she played along, albeit with less enthusiasm than usual. “Ooo-rah, Sergeant.”
“Where’s Private Elvis?” Catherine extracted a wide hair pick from Gabe’s rear pocket and fluffed her curls in the back.
“Don’t know. He was AWOL when I woke up.”
Catherine shook her head. That dog was something. “Covert op, no doubt. He’ll turn up. He always does.” She slid the comb back into Gabe’s pocket. “You’ll meet muster, I suppose. Let’s move out.”
***
The crowd was larger, much larger than Catherine had anticipated. She’d expected the local townfolk, but not the volume of out-of-towners that were filling the one-acre front lawn with their cars under the direction of two deputies and several volunteer firemen.
“Good thing we took the path through the woods,” Gabe said, frowning.
Gabe headed into the house, but Catherine spotted Ed Cofy supervising the unloading of more folding chairs from two pickup trucks.
“I thought all the chairs were unloaded and set up last night,” she said, shading her eyes against the bright sun to survey the situation. Several hundred chairs were arranged in a U-shape, with a small platform at its focal point. On the platform was a beautiful antique table of dark, rich cherrywood. The chairs they’d set out the evening before were filled almost to the seat with ladies in broad-brimmed hats, waving away the gnats and heat with hand fans, and men in khakis and a rainbow of golf shirts, lifting their ball caps, fedoras, or Stetsons to mop their sweaty brows.
“They were, but then the highway patrol radioed two hours ago to say their troopers were setting up to push traffic through several big intersections on the highway because vehicles were stacking up all the way to the interstate. So I called around and wrangled a few hundred more chairs. I don’t think the last governor who died drew this many people to his funeral.”
Catherine rubbed the back of her neck and pulled her ball cap lower on her forehead. “I hope we have enough food.”
Ed laughed. “I sent for more tables, too. The ladies weren’t taking a chance that Jesus would show up and feed thousands from five loaves and two fish, so they cooked enough to feed two counties. Keeping the baked stuff warm is no problem, but I called Don to send over a couple of his refrigeration trucks for the rest until it’s time to serve.”
“Geez. How much is this going to cost?”
Ed glared at her. “I can’t believe you asked that. You know Don wouldn’t take a penny. Hell, the checks Becki wrote in advance for her cremation, the band, the bakery, and all the rest to make this happen are all in that big bowl in the living room. Nobody cashed ’em. All had stories about how Be
cki helped this one or that one. I don’t think there was a single family or person in this county she hadn’t touched in some way.”
Catherine shook her head. “If she’s the standard for getting into heaven, then I’m surely going to hell.”
Ed laughed again, slapping her lightly on the shoulder. His eyes went round in mock surprise. “Maybe Becki’s passing was the Rapture, and she was the only one taken.”
“Stop it.” Catherine almost smiled, then frowned at Ed’s shorts and festive shirt sporting large red and green parrots. “This is a funeral, Ed.”
His expression turned serious. “Don’t, Cat. That isn’t what Becki wanted. This is a celebration of her life. There will be tears, for sure. But you and I both know she was certain that an afterlife exists, that the soul doesn’t end when it leaves this sphere. She saw dying as her next great adventure.”
“I know.”
“Hey, what’s with the dark jeans and long face?” Ed’s chief deputy, Vicki Devine, strode up in blinding white jeans and a hot-pink tank covered by an open shirt made of a breezy weave embroidered with thin gold and pink thread in several patterned stripes down the front.
Catherine did smile at Vicki, another member of their local army-reserve unit. “I wore my only pair of khakis day before yesterday, and Elvis put his muddy feet all over them. I haven’t had a chance to wash them.” She looked down at her dark jeans and crisp, white shirt. “At least I didn’t wear black.”
Vicki propped one fist on her hip and gave Catherine the once-over. Her gaze stopped on Catherine’s ball cap that sported the local feed-shop logo. “Really, Cat? Bubba’s Feed and Seed?”
Ed began to back away. “I think I should check on the…uh, on the band. I need to check on the band.” He turned and hurried away.
“Coward,” Catherine said. She snugged her hat until it touched the corners of her arched brow. “It’s new and, therefore, clean.”
Ordinary is Perfect Page 7
